So, it turns out that I can never change the name of my Wi-Fi network again, or my speakers will stop working. That may sound ridiculous, but let me guide you through the series of bad decisions and technological whims that have brought me here, and I can (explain).
The speakers in question are the Nocs NS2 air monitors (specifically, the first generation version of the product, for reasons that will be important soon). NS2 air monitors date back to the heyday of Apple's Airplay standard in 2013, when companies not only included Airplay support in their speakers but built complete products around them ( The Verge even included them in our Back to School Guide that year!).
Eventually, Nocs released a second version of NS2 that added Bluetooth, when it turned out that people really did not like Airplay. But when I decided to buy a pair of NS2 air monitors for my room in college, I thought that, as a stubborn iTunes user who would depend on Airplay anyway, I could save a couple of dollars and pick up an original pair of speakers in the cheap. "Who needs Bluetooth?" I thought.
I'm a couple of years old and I'm not entirely sure if Nocs, as a company, is still in the market. Their website still exists, but most of their products are sold out, and they do not seem to have posted anything on social media in years, apart from an updated Instagram account from time to time.
But the most important thing for me However, the Nocs application, which you must configure for the Wi-Fi network and update the firmware, has not been updated since October 2014, which means that the iOS application no longer works, since Nocs never updated it with a 64-bit version. (Apparently there is an Android application, but the reviews indicate that it seems to fail more often, so it probably is not a great solution either.)
All this would be a minor problem if I had another way of using it. the speakers, but since I do not have the Bluetooth model, I'm stuck with Airplay or a 3.5 mm cable (which is not very convenient to access, since they are on a shelf). In addition, Airplay itself as standard is about to disappear, so even if the pair of NS2 that I have works without problems, they will be obsolete and incompatible with the new wave of speakers that will come out every time Apple finally decides to launch Airplay 2.
I'm also not sure if there's a real lesson to learn here. The speakers still work technically, even if my hopes of ever having a software update or an update of Airplay 2 are almost beyond doubt. And in the grand scheme of things, a broken complementary application does not really figure in the list of real problems in my life (or someone's).
But I suppose there is at least one warning story about how fragile our smart gadget ecosystem can be, and how a broken link in the intricate chain that keeps everything running can close everything forever. And if I could do things again, I probably would have gone with something that works with Bluetooth. Or maybe Sonos! Probably, Sonos will not stop working soon, right?
… right?
